Department Information

News Detail

04/10/2012

SUNY Cortland will dedicate a multimedia sculpture that hangs in Moffett Center at a reception to be held at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 13.

The sculpture, created by Vaughn Randall, an assistant professor of art and art history, and commissioned by Craig Little, a SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of sociology/anthropology, was installed in January in the Moffett Center lobby closest to Sperry Center. Named “Passage,” it marks one SUNY Cortland faculty member’s artistic ability and another’s generosity.

Suspended from the ceiling, the sculpture is made of four different types of wood, fabric and steel. It measures 26 feet long and weighs 125 pounds.

In addition to Little and Randall, SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum, Vice President for Institutional Advancement Raymond D. Franco ’72, M ’75, and other members of the campus community will attend the dedication ceremony. The event is open to the public and refreshments will be served.

Little, a SUNY Cortland faculty member since 1972, has offered the finished piece as a gift to the Cortland College Foundation.

When Little’s department relocated to a newly renovated section of Moffett Center in 2009, he was inspired, with the encouragement of his wife who has an appreciation for art, to enhance the well-traveled passageway. Collaboration with Randall helped put this vision on paper and after a long process, what began as an idea came to fruition in the form of a boat-like hull with paddles and an airplane wing.

Randall believes the boat-like structure suggests a voyage and is a worthy symbol of adventure and creativity, and therefore the pursuit of knowledge.